Previously on Forum

California voters last month rejected a measure to repeal the death penalty and narrowly passed one that will speed up the process for executing inmates. California hasn’t carried out an execution in a decade because of issues with its legal injection method. A new protocol is pending approval by the end of the year. Forum discusses the state of the death penalty in California and how soon executions may resume.

On Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a water projects bill that has split California Democrats and is worrying some environmentalists. The 360-61 vote pitted Senator Dianne Feinstein, who negotiated the California-focused items, against Senator Barbara Boxer, who strongly opposed them. The House bill offers millions for California water storage projects and eases limits on moving water to San Joaquin Valley farms. The $558 million water package now goes to the Senate for a vote.

Cleve Jones has been at the center of the Bay Area’s LGBTQ movement since the 1970s. He worked closely with Harvey Milk, co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and conceived of the historic NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Jones now works as an organizer with the hospitality workers’ union, UNITE HERE. His new book, “When We Rise,” traces his life in activism and is the inspiration for an upcoming ABC mini-series.

While traveling to Ghana on a Stanford research fellowship, Yaa Gyasi visited the Cape Coast Castle, where she learned about the role Africans played in perpetuating the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This knowledge became the impetus for her debut novel “Homegoing,” which chronicles the lives of two Ghanaian sisters and their experiences of slavery. We speak with Berkeley-based Gyasi about the novel, which has been named a New York Times notable book for 2016.

A UCLA Anderson Forecast report published Tuesday predicts an economic boost for California and the Bay Area as military spending increases under a Trump administration. But the shift in deportation policy for undocumented immigrants could heavily impact the state’s agriculture sector where an estimated half of the workers are undocumented. We’ll take apart the report’s findings for California and the nation.

After a fire killed 36 people at an Oakland warehouse and artists’ collective known as the ‘Ghost Ship’ on Friday, the union representing Oakland and Alameda County firefighters has criticized the city for not having enough fire inspectors. An Alameda County civil grand jury report from 2014 shows the fire department failed to inspect over one-third of the city’s 11,000 commercial properties, and couldn’t gain access to a quarter of those they were sent to inspect. A recent staffing report shows four fire inspector positions, while funded, remain unfilled. Forum discusses the issues surrounding fire inspection in light of the deadly Ghost Ship fire.

Veteran homeless advocate Jeff Kositsky has been at the helm of the new San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing since last summer. While nationally the homeless population is down by 14 percent, the city is facing growing numbers of homeless, up to an estimated 6,996 this year. As part of the SF Homeless Project, Forum talks with Kositsky about what strides the city has made in solving homelessness. We’ll also get an update on the nontraditional shelters called “navigation centers,” and hear why he has come out in support of safe injection sites for addicts and wet housing for alcoholics.

In his new book, “Thank You for Being Late,” Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman examines the social and economic challenges posed by a world where everything is getting faster. He writes about workers’ anxiety as machines perform increasingly sophisticated tasks, and shares his prescription for more sustainable economic growth. We speak with the longtime foreign affairs columnist about the book and what a Trump administration might mean for the global economy.

Last month UC Davis celebrated the opening of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art on its campus. The 50,000 square foot museum features pieces by Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri and Ruth Horsting, among others. One of the museum’s premier exhibits, “Out Our Way,” showcases works by the first artists hired to teach at UC Davis in the 1960s. We’ll hear how a school known for its agricultural sciences came to house one of the newest visual arts collections in Northern California and what the museum hopes to accomplish with its first exhibitions.

In a win for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and environmental activists, the federal government on Sunday denied a permit that would have allowed completion of the last 1,100 feet of a 1,200 mile oil pipeline across the Midwest. The stretch in question, which the tribe says would contaminate their water supply and disturb sacred sites, would cross a Missouri River reservoir. The decision to deny the permit has come under fire from supporters who say the pipeline is a key energy project. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team reiterated on Monday that it supports the pipeline, raising serious questions about how long the decision will stand.

A candlelight vigil was held at Lake Merritt in Oakland Monday night for the victims of the fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse art collective in East Oakland. Thirty-six people are confirmed dead so far. In this hour, we remember the victims of the fire, talk about Oakland’s underground arts community and take calls from those affected by the blaze. If you have loved ones who are missing or who died in the fire, or if you attended events at the Ghost Ship and have memories to share, we’d like to hear from you.

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About Forum

KQED's live call-in program presents balanced discussions of local, state, national, and world issues as well as in-depth interviews with leading figures in politics, science, entertainment, and the arts.